DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Bears fans poisoned a Steelers fan at a bar?!?!?!

Posted by Gregg Rosenthal on November 18, 2009 2:36 PM ET
Steelers fan Zack Heddinger says he was blinded at a Chicago bar by Bears fans after some trash talking gone awry.

Heddinger was in the Windy City for the Steelers 17-14 loss to Chicago in Week Two.

"Basically, I guess, my buddies had gotten into an altercation and they offered a drink as a peacemaker from what I understand," Heddinger said.

That's where things get weird.

According to ABC4 in Pittsburgh, Heddinger passed out and his heart stopped four times after he was rushed to a local hospital. Initially, doctors just thought he was drunk. But they quickly suspected something else was up.

Police are now investigating the incident, and the local bar, Kitty O'Shea's, is fully cooperating. Doctors now believe his drink could have been spiked with toxic grain alcohol.

Heddinger says he can't remember what happened that day, but hasn't been able to see since. He's taking oxygen treatments to recover his part of his eyesight, but doctors aren't very hopeful.

"I don't think they tried to kill me. I think they tried to hurt me, but the killing came pretty close," said Heddinger.


PFT.

My God................

Steeler fans are annoying ( aren't we all to someone though ) but this is just mind blowing .

Luckily, he could smell his way back home.

That is just going to far.

They were saying on the news here that his drink was spiked with anti-freeze.

Kitty O'Shea's?

I was just there not long ago when I was at a conference in Chicago. It's in the Chicago Hilton.

Crazy ass people. I hate the Steelers and have made comments about them, but would never think to pull a stunt like this.

Interesting, where do you get access to anti-freeze in a hotel in downton Chicago?.....it's not like they keep a gallon under the bar...or do they?...

That's just plain crazy.WTH

http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/...hicago-bar.html



A Pittsburgh Steelers fan says he was left blind and suffered memory loss after taking a drink from a Bears fan following a game at Soldier Field in September.

The Steelers had lost to the Bears and some trash-talking was going on between Zack Heddinger's group of Pittsburgh fans and a group of Bears fans at Kitty O'Shea's, his family says.

There was an "altercation between Bears and Pittsburgh fans," said Chicago Police Officer Laura Kubiak, citing a police report filed about the incident.

Later, Heddinger, 46, was offered a drink by one of the Chicago fans, a gesture he thought was a peace offering, his older sister Linda Heddinger said this morning. "My brother, trying to be a peacemaker, drank it," she said. "No one else did."

The police report notes Heddinger's group left the bar a short time later. At about 11 p.m., a call was made from their hotel for an ambulance.

Linda Heddinger said another sister received a call at about 2:30 a.m. from Rush University Medical Center that their brother's heart had stopped and he wasn't expected to survive.


By Thursday, Heddinger was still hospitalized; he was getting headaches and starting to lose his vision, his sister said.


Doctors told the family that alcohol alone would not explain his condition and believe the drink was spiked with grain alcohol, antifreeze or some kind of pesticide, Linda Heddinger said.


Heddinger later returned to the Pittsburgh area, where he is staying with one of his sisters and his account was first reported by WTAE-TV Ch. 4.

Linda Heddinger said her brother is having memory difficulties and is nearly blind.

"It seems like a bad connection you have with television," she said. "He has glimpses, but just because he can see you today doesn't mean he will see you tomorrow."

Based on conversations with those with Heddinger, he and his family have "narrowed down" the instances in which he could have been poisoned to Kitty O'Shea's, his sister said.

Linda Heddinger said the game was part of an annual trip her brother takes with childhood friends to see sporting events in various cities.

The last two months have been "very, very difficult," Linda Heddinger said, with the family trying various treatments and making arrangements for his rehabilitation.

Heddinger is the 7th of nine siblings, most of whom live in the Pittsburgh area.


A regional sales manager for a jewelry company, Zack Heddinger hasn't been working and he doesn't have health insurance, his sister said. "We're emotionally drained, financially drained," she said. "I don't understand the mentality where you would do this to someone."

Police said Belmont Area detectives are still investigating the incident.


There were several newscasts that reported it could have been anti-freeze.I guess at the time they weren't sure.Our local channel here said anti-freeze.We all know how news channels are.They want to be the first to report something.